On the west coast of the Isle of Man stands the town of Peel. It is a
little fishing port, looking out on the Irish Sea. To the north of
it there is a broad shore, to the south lies the harbour with a rocky
headland called Contrary Head; in front--until lately divided from the
mainland by a narrow strait--is a rugged island rock. On this rock stand
the broken ruins of a castle, Peel Castle, and never did castle stand
on a grander spot. The sea flows round it, beating on the jagged cliffs
beneath, and behind it are the wilder cliffs of Contrary. In the water
between and around Contrary contrary currents flow, and when the wind
is high they race and prance there like an unbroken horse. It is a grand
scene, but a perilous place for ships.
One afternoon in October of 1889 a Norwegian ship (strange chance!), the
_St George_ (name surely chosen by the Fates!), in a fearful tempest was
drifting on to Contrary Head. She was labouring hard in the heavy
sea, rearing, plunging, creaking, groaning, and driving fast through
clamouring winds and threshing breakers on to the cruel, black, steep
horns of rock. All Peel was down at the beach watching her. Flakes of
sea-foam were flying around, and the waves breaking on the beach were
scooping up the shingle and flinging it through the air like sleet.
Peel has a lifeboat, and it was got out. There were so many volunteers
that the harbour-master had difficulties of selection. The boat got off;
the coxswain was called Charlie Cain; one of his crew was named Gorry,
otherwise Orry. It was a perilous adventure. The Norwegian had lost her
masts, and her spars were floating around her in the snow-like surf. She
was dangerous to approach, but the lifeboat reached her. Charlie cried
out to the Norwegian captain: "How many of you?" The answer came back,
"Twenty-two!" Charlie counted them as they hung on at the ship's side,
and said: "I only see twenty-one; not a man shall leave the ship until
you bring the odd one on deck." The odd one, a disabled man, had been
left below to his fate. Now he was brought up, and all were taken aboard
the lifeboat.
On landing at Peel there was great excitement, men cheering and women
crying. The Manx women spotted a baby among the Norwegians, fought for
it, one woman got it, and carried it off to a fire and dry clothing. It
was the captain's wife's baby, and an hour afterwards the poor captain's
wife, like a creature distracted, was searching for it all over the
town. And to heighten the scene, report says that at that tremendous
moment a splendid rainbow spanned the bay from side to side. That ought
to be true if it is not.
It was a brilliant rescue, but the moving part of the story is yet to
tell. The Norwegian Government, touched by the splendid heroism of the
Manxmen, struck medals for the lifeboat men and sent them across to the
Governor. These medals were distributed last summer on the island rock
within the ruins of old Peel Castle. Think of it! One thousand years
before, not far from that same place, Orry the Viking came ashore from
Denmark or Norway. And now his Manx sons, still bearing his very name,
Orry, save from the sea the sons of the brethren he left behind, and
down the milky way, whence Orry himself once came, come now to the
Manxmen the thanks and the blessings of their kinsmen, Orry's father's
children.
Such a story as this thrills one to the heart. It links Manxmen to the
great past. What are a thousand years before it? Time sinks away, and
the old sea-warrior seems to speak to us still through the surf of that
storm at Peel.